Chamber and committees

The reduction in business in the district court is a consequence of the reduction in the overall number of cases reported to the procurator fiscal, the availability of fiscal fines and other alternatives to prosecution and the shift in the balance of business towards more serious crime.

The training received and written guidance held by procurators fiscal identifies particular classes of case as generally requiring priority. These include, for example, cases involving children, cases in which the accused is in custody and cases in which a time bar is approaching. The allocation of priorities as between the several cases which a given member of staff or a given office requires to deal with at a particular time is a matter for professional judgement in light of training and experience and depends on consideration of all of the circumstances of each case.

Procurators Fiscal are instructed that cases which may be competently taken in the district court should be taken there unless there is some good reason for prosecuting in the sheriff court or the Lord Advocate directs otherwise. The Lord Advocate has directed that: (a) proceedings should not be taken in the district court for a breach of a Sex Offenders Order, or any offence aggravated by a breach of a Sex Offender Order; (b) proceedings should not be taken in the district court where the prosecutor considers a Non-Harassment Order to be appropriate, and (c) proceeding should not be taken in the district court where the offence is racially aggravated or contrary to section 50A of the Criminal Law (Consolidated) (Scotland) Act 1995. The criteria for the use of alternatives to prosecution are set out in the Prosecution Code which has been published and made available on the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service website.

This information is not available.

We are addressing the timeliness of reporting with the police and other reporting agencies.

The following table shows the latest centrally available data for headcount and whole-time equivalent of speech therapists by NHS board in Scotland:Speech Therapists in Scotland by NHS Board at 30 September

	Headcount				WTE
	1998	1999	2000	2001P	1998	1999	2000	2001P
Scotland	824	844	887	882	686.4	708.1	744.4	739.6
Argyll and Clyde	62	62	62	66	52.4	52.9	53.7	56.2
Ayrshire and Arran	41	46	49	54	36.2	40.2	41.7	45.8
Borders	18	18	19	20	15.5	16.0	16.7	17.2
Dumfries and Galloway	25	28	26	29	22.3	25.5	22.2	23.8
Fife	63	46	67	50	49.4	37.9	51.6	40.1
Forth Valley	42	46	53	54	34.1	36.5	43.5	43.3
Grampian	94	101	101	96	70.9	78.3	78.9	74.4
Greater Glasgow	139	147	155	156	122.6	128.1	136.3	137.6
Highland	31	29	28	33	27.2	24.6	24.2	28.4
Lanarkshire	104	107	100	102	94.5	95.4	89.7	90.3
Lothian	133	138	148	143	100.4	109.2	117.9	112.9
Orkney	4	4	4	3	2.7	2.7	2.7	2.4
Shetland	4	3	3	3	3.7	2.5	2.7	2.7
Tayside	58	64	66	66	48.7	53.4	56.6	57.3
Western Isles	6	5	6	7	5.8	5.0	6.0	7.0

^PProvisionalNote:1. These data are released under National Manpower Statistics from Payroll.2. Whole-time equivalent (WTE) is calculated by dividing the number of contracted hours by the conditioned hours for the group of staff.

This information is not held centrally. However, we are addressing the timeliness of reporting with the police and other reporting agencies.

The information requested is not held centrally. Data on waiting times for a first out-patient appointment with a consultant is collected at speciality level only. The median waiting times for a first out-patient appointment with a consultant in Neurology, following referral by a General Medical Practitioner, in the year ending 31 December 2001, by NHS board of residence, is given in the table.NHSScotland: Median Waiting Times for a First Out-patient Appointment with a Consultant in Neurology, Following Referral by a General Medical Practitioner, by NHS Board of Residence. Year Ending 31 December 2001^P

NHS Board	Median Wait
Argyll and Clyde	80 days
Ayrshire and Arran	97 days
Borders	78 days
Dumfries and Galloway	101 days
Fife	66 days
Forth Valley	70 days
Grampian	88 days
Greater Glasgow	95 days
Highland	59 days
Lanark	106 days
Lothian	28 days
Orkney	120 days
Shetland	97 days
Tayside	66 days
Western Isles	56 days
Scotland	69 days

^pProvisional.Source: ISD Scotland.

We are implementing the recommendations of the recent management review. Additional prosecutors have been recruited and structural changes are being made to improve the management support given to prosecutors.

The proportion of these cases is very small, having risen from 205 to 451. There are likely to be a number of factors leading to this, including the need to devote resources to serious cases and other competing pressures on the time of Procurators Fiscal.